EPILOGUE

"Still Alive" -- Jonathan Coulton

Steed sat at his desk, hands folded serenely on the blotter before him. The desktop was cluttered with stacks of files, hastily scrawled notes, an abandoned tea tray and a bank of electronic gadgets that tied the First Director's office to the SPCFC's main computer system.

But Steed saw none of these. Instead, his gaze rested on the antique-looking rotary telephone that stood at one corner of the desk.

He wasn't sure what unnerved him about picking up the receiver. He knew that the events of the past twenty-four hours more than justified his making a report and a request for assistance, but still he hesitated to initiate contact with the Higher Authority.

With a sigh, Steed forced his eyes back to the notepad that lay before him. He reached for a slightly stale biscuit from the tea tray and nibbled at it distastefully as he reviewed the points he'd collected for the report he knew he had to make. He dragged his pen through several items that had seemed relevant earlier, but had been overshadowed by subsequent events. Steed dutifully annotated the account of Sephiroth's abduction of the Second Director with a few details, but he suspected that his superior would be more interested in Noin's mysterious return to headquarters. Not a single member of the command nor operations team had been able to conceive a plausible explanation for her sudden reappearance, and Noin herself had been too stunned and physically unwell to answer their questions.

Steed had his own theory, which he had not shared with the others. Apart from Noin herself, only Steed and the Higher Authority knew the details of the mysterious abilities she had shown during the exodus of her home world. Noin had largely dismissed the phenomenon and tucked it away into a part of memory reserved for nonsensical dreams, but Steed and the H. A. had taken it far more seriously.

Steed had never told Noin that the reason she had been recruited and offered the Directorship had less to do with her tactical and command experience than with the hazy ability to find missing persons that she had displayed then... and yet, he never would have imagined that Noin would find a way to return on her own. Noin and her "powers" were still very much a mystery.

With a determined flourish, Steed finished his notes and deposited his pen on the blotter. He straightened in his chair and took a bitter sip of tepid tea to rinse the dry biscuit crumbs from his throat. At last, when there was nothing else he could do to procrastinate, he reached for the rotary telephone and dialed.

There was a gap at the base of the door where light from the hallway crept into the office. She could see, stretched along the polished floor, the long shadows of Amon's steps as he paced restlessly outside the door like a military guard. She was grateful for his vigilance, but she knew that sooner or later he would put his questions to her, just like all the rest, and she would have no answers for him.

- - -

Noin shivered and curled into a tighter ball. Under Amon's heavy black coat – he had draped it over her for a blanket after he'd carried her here – she was sweltering, but the heat could not stop her trembling.

They would want to know how she had done it. Amon and Steed would expect her to tell them that much, at least. How had she returned without a portal? Could she do it again? Could she convey someone else alongside her? Noin couldn't imagine what she would tell them, when she didn't even know the answers herself.

Slowly, Noin pushed back the coat and swung her feet to the floor. There was only one person who could answer the questions about her powers, and Sephiroth's.

Somehow, she had to find Black.